Friends Don't
by AA-Tenks
Summary: Post-11x05. It's easy enough to be friends. Callie and Arizona get it. They know the rules of friendship. They just need to stand by it.
1. Friends Don't Interrupt

It's not the soft clinking of the glass that really gets to her.

It's her laugh. She laughs and it's like someone has stolen her breath away.

_She _laughs and she feels it. The sound consumes, it drowns out the rest of her hearing. The rest becomes droning. The sound vibrates inside of her and it _makes _her want to drown. To go somewhere else, somewhere where she's not. But she gets caught up in it.

She is caught up in the sound, caught up in the celebratory air that she is not a part of. She wants to catch what is being uttered the way that laugh captures her, she wants to be caught, she wants – she wants to know what is making her happy.

So, she is surprised when he asks her again, when he brings her back into their conversation. Into her reality.

"Huh?" she asks.

"What," he murmurs, frowning as he does. His eyes are drawn to her distraction; they look behind her – and suddenly, he knows, they all seem to know – but his eyes draw back, and he resumes, "is the cost?"

"It's just what I told you," she clarifies, her tone affected by the way he looks at her now.

"What," he scoffs, "then do it."

"I don't know."

"Don't you want to move out?"

"Sofia is there."

"So," he starts, and now his eyes look behind her, as though in warning, "is Callie."

"I want," she says, suddenly aware of her presence, suddenly aware of her laughter in a room that is filled with everyone but her, "to be her friend."

"No," he refutes, "you don't."

"Yes, I do."

"Well," he grins, "you sure have a bad way of showing it." And he brings her back again, but to another time.

Callie said that. She never expressed herself enough. _See? Why don't you just – If you'd just say this stuff out loud once in a while. _If she did, if she did. Say it, say it. Love should be verbalized.

Shouldn't it?

She should have said it more.

Resentment boils. "I'm over it now."

"Yeah, right," he says, and she wants to yell.

"I am," she insists. "I am."

It took time. She's here now. They've been done for months.

Callie left her. In turn, she gave Callie silence. Was she okay? It wasn't Callie's problem. She wasn't her problem anymore.

She wouldn't _be_ her problem.

Callie stopped trying. She took the silence and went on with her life.

So they exchanged pleasantries, only speaking when child-rearing duties were addressed. They spoke when mortgage bills were due. They spoke about cooperative surgeries. Smiles were rare.

Laughter, especially.

The stony silences turned into habitual silences. They grew used to it. Callie did. She did too. She did and her resentment seemed to dissipate. So, it seemed okay. It is okay.

It's okay now.

"Alright," he says, "be her friend. That way, you'll never get over her."

He misses the point, she thinks. She's over _it_, not her. She realizes that and hesitates. She finishes her wine and stands to leave, staring at him for only a moment before grabbing her jacket.

He says nothing, though – this man that used to be her student. She says nothing too, and she appreciates that mutual understanding. The thought almost distracts her as she makes her way out of the bar, as she passes by her laughing, gorgeous ex-wife.

Not today, she thinks. Not tonight, it isn't the night.

She feels Callie's eyes on her and it makes her want to turn around. But she doesn't. She doesn't when she hears that laughter again – louder, and almost contrived.

She'll say it. But not today.

Friends don't interrupt.


	2. Friends Don't Kiss

But she interrupts.

She sees her in conversation, laughing delightfully with April the way she did that night so many months ago. Something about her laughter brings her back, something about it draws her closer. And before she realizes it, she is wrapping her hand around her upper arm and pulling gently, as if she's a child asking for something – yearning for attention.

But it _is_ about their child.

She surprises herself when she does, when she interrupts, but only because Arizona doesn't look bothered. Surprisingly, she looks pleased. Surprisingly, her blue eyes light up.

And a smile appears.

"Callie!" she exclaims. "What's up?"

And she now has to stop. Now, it's weird.

Arizona is smiling. At her.

"What?" she lets herself say.

"What?" Arizona blinks. "What?"

She hears a chime and watches as April turns to leave, as a page whisks her away, and she suddenly feels trapped.

"No, um," she says, and she wants to ask why, why, why—but the question is too loaded, too difficult, and so she changes pace. She changes her tone so it doesn't sound so surprised—so pleased that she finally gets a smile.

"Change of plans. I need you to pick Sofia up tonight."

She expects understanding. She expects the trite agreements.

"Okay," Arizona says. But then she asks, "Why?"

"What?"

"Why the change?" she presses on.

She is surprised again, she doesn't know how to respond. She doesn't know how to talk to her or what to say. How do you break out of a habit?

How do you break out? _I want you to feel free too._

"Oh," she says, regaining her voice, "Derek and I need to practice."

"Oh, the big surgery," Arizona gathers. "Good, you worked hard."

All she does is work hard. She doesn't know anything but work now. She doesn't know how to talk to her ex-wife.

But she's happy.

She doesn't need her.

"Yeah," she admits, "I did."

"You _do_," Arizona emphasizes. And her smile is soft and bright and it makes her remember too many things.

"I have to go soon," she says hurriedly, watching those bright eyes dim like an overcast, "So, Sofia?"

"I've got it."

"Okay," she says, and she turns to leave.

"Callie?"

She meets those eyes again, brighter this time. They briefly remind her of the sky, the way the clouds seem to cover the sun – slightly and quickly, but only to have it overshine them, anyway. The sun bursts out of the clouds that obscure its view.

Like Arizona's eyes when they brighten up. She wonders if it's because of her.

She wants to ask, but decides against it. "Yeah?"

"Good luck."

"Thank you."

* * *

><p>"You know what I'm doing?" Arizona asks, placing a coffee in front of her.<p>

Her eyes are tired and her face seems flushed, as though she's been out running or something. It's a look she remembers.

She is surprised again. Surprised at how spontaneous Arizona is becoming, surprised that she speaks to her so freely. She's been approaching her lately, asking her how her surgeries have gone, asking minor things about her daily life. As if she's discovering it for the first time.

"What?"

Determined, Arizona pulls a seat out from under the table and sits across from her. She looks at her very intently and it makes her wonder if she's done something wrong.

"I want to be your friend."

"What?"

"I want us to be friends," Arizona repeats. She hesitates and looks alarmed, but she collects herself, "Do you want to?"

She remembers the forced conversations with the seemingly real smiles and the prolonged eye contact, and it makes her sort of understand.

She laughs now, she laughs after a long while it seems, and Arizona grins at her as though she's just told a hilarious joke.

It is a bit funny, she thinks. She gets it now.

"Yeah," she finds herself agreeing, "okay."

* * *

><p>She rocks her surgery just as well, and it all goes well now. Now that she's getting along with her ex-wife and her surgical buddies, life seems good.<p>

They are friends, she thinks.

It's weird and awkward, and it makes her a little stressed because she's never become friends with any of her exes. She never thought she'd do it with the love of her life.

So she finds it strange sometimes. She finds it strange when she genuinely laughs at Arizona's corny jokes. The jokes are always funny, but it makes her remember the times when she'd follow up the laughter with telling Arizona that she's cute and reaching out to kiss her.

She doesn't do that anymore. Of course she doesn't. Friends are friends.

"Drink?" Arizona asks as they pull on their jackets.

"Huh?"

"Drink. Can I buy you one?" Arizona offers again. "You rocked your surgery. How about a celebration drink?" she justifies the offer, tacking on a title to it. "As a friend," she adds.

She smiles, they can joke about this now.

That's what friends do, she thinks. Joke about the good times. Buy each other drinks.

But are the jokes supposed to hurt?

They could buy drinks.

They bought hundreds of wine bottles.

They bought houses and cribs and cars and rings, but they could buy drinks.

"Sure."

They giggle over wine, something they've always done. They're different now, but some things are the same. White wine, red wine.

"Karev still struggling to live up to your name," she says, laughing at Arizona's emphatic nod.

"Oh, he's good," Arizona clarifies, "but he gets sulky."

"Well, can't bite the hand that feeds."

"You exaggerate."

They sip their wine, talk about their daughter, gossip over work.

She wants to talk about more. She wants to talk about "what if's" and love and romance, but she can't talk about those things with her.

She can't talk about love with her.

_What was your deepest love? Your best sex? _It was all with you. Their friendship has boundaries, she realizes. And they know those things.

How can they be friends, she wonders. She doesn't know how, but they're doing it. They're doing it.

_Do you still love me?_ she wants to ask.

She wants to. She suddenly wants to ask, but she holds herself back. What if it isn't true? What if it's just not true anymore? Friends don't do that, she thinks. Friends don't.

And then Arizona grins, licks her lips in the way that she always does, takes another sip–and all she wants to do is kiss her. She wants to, she really does, but she doesn't. Instead, she sucks it up and sighs softly before forcing herself to smile.

She's done it before. She can do it again.

Arizona always did shut her out. And she always did suck it up.

She doesn't know why she thinks of this now. They're new people now, they're changed people. They're friends now.

She defends their friendship in her mind, but her eyes betray her as they wander to wet pink lips.

Arizona notices. Arizona's eyes are drawn to her, drawn to her lips. This time, she notices. She notices when Arizona smiles back and tips her glass back. She is prompted to do the same.

She smiles and takes another sip.

Their eyes battle – they are drawn to the lips, to a habit that has long ago died. And they drown this desire with sips.

Sips, sips, sips – the rim becomes marked by the ferocity of their lips.

But it's good that way, it's better.

It is better that the glass is kissed because they are just friends.

And friends don't kiss.


End file.
